Mary, Queen of Scots (49 page)

The smear campaign unnerved Hay, who was then with Bothwell at Seton. According to his dying confession, he sensed that he was being shunned for his association with the Earl, and began to suffer agonising qualms of conscience. One day, when they were in private and discussing Darnley’s death, Bothwell asked Hay what he thought “when you saw him blown up.”

“Alas, my Lord,” Hay replied, “Why do you say that? Whenever I hear such a thing, the words wound me to the death, as they should you.”
⁷¹
It is interesting to note that Bothwell was still under the impression that the explosion had caused Darnley’s death; for obvious reasons, no one had thought to disabuse him of the idea, which strongly suggests that the unlikely coalition of nobles that had formed to bring about Darnley’s murder had already disintegrated. Bothwell may not have realised it, but he was on his own now, and politically isolated.

The Queen, however, seemed determined to stand by Bothwell and defy public opinion. Rashly, on 1 March, she bestowed on him further benefits attached to the sheriffdom of Edinburgh and the bailery of Lauderdale.
⁷²
But, contrary to what people thought, Bothwell had not grown rich in her service: the fact that he had just had to dispose of some land to raise funds shows that his financial position was as precarious as ever, and this latest gift was no doubt given in order to avoid him suffering further embarrassment. But the timing of it was disastrous.

On 1 March, in the midst of this clamour, Mary, still at Seton, replied in the most reasonable and accommodating manner to Lennox:

We have received your letter, and by the same perceive that you have partly mistaken our late letter sent you the 23rd of February, in that point that we should remit the trial of the odious act committed to the time of a Parliament. We meant not that, but rather would wish to God that it might be suddenly and without delay tried, for the sooner the better, and the greater comfort to us. And where you desire that we should cause the names contained in some tickets affixed on the Tolbooth to be apprehended and put in sure keeping, there is so many of the said tickets, and therewithal so different and contrary to others in counting of the names, that we wot not upon what ticket to proceed. But if there be any names mentioned in them that you think worthy to suffer a trial, upon your advertisement we shall so proceed to the cognition taking, as may stand with the laws of this realm; and, being found culpable, shall see the punishment as rigorously executed as the wickedness of the crime deserves. What other thing you think meet to be done to that purpose we pray you let us understand, and we shall not omit any occasion which may clear the matter.
⁷³

Mary was assuring Lennox that she had no intention of deferring the trial of anyone arrested for Darnley’s murder until Parliament met. As to his suggestion, there were far too many people named in the placards for it to be realistic for her to apprehend them all, but if he wished to name those whom he believed guilty, and “if he will stand to the accusation of any of them,” she would authorise a private prosecution,
⁷⁴
and if this resulted in a conviction, she would ensure that those convicted would be punished. In no sense can she be said to have been protecting Bothwell, for she must have realised that Lennox would name him. In the absence of any evidence, she herself was powerless to summon any suspect to answer before Parliament.

On the night after Mary wrote this letter, the most notorious and damning of all the placards appeared in Edinburgh. It depicted a bare-breasted and crowned mermaid—a mermaid then being a symbol for a siren or prostitute—holding a whip above a hare surrounded by swords; the mermaid was undoubtedly meant to be the Queen, while the hare was Bothwell’s heraldic device. The mermaid was protecting the hare with a whip, but none dared approach it anyway because of the threatening swords. There were two versions of this placard: one is coloured, the other uncoloured with a Latin motto that translates as, “Destruction awaits the wicked on every side.” This motto was taken from a book that may well have been given to Darnley by his uncle, John Stuart, Lord d’Aubigny,
⁷⁵
and its use suggests that adherents of the Lennoxes were involved in the smear campaign.

The contents of the earlier placards were by now notorious in London, and on 1 March de Silva wrote to King Philip: “Every day it becomes clearer that the Queen must take steps to prove that she had no hand in the death of her husband, if she is to prosper in her claims to the succession here.”
⁷⁶
Soon, rumours of Bothwell’s guilt had spread to Paris, Madrid and Venice.

Given the mounting crisis, Moray could no longer delay his return to Edinburgh, and he arrived back in early March—certainly before the 8th,
⁷⁷
and perhaps by the 3rd, when Forster reported to Cecil that Moray had had Balfour imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. This cannot be correct, as Balfour attended a meeting of the Privy Council on 11 March.
⁷⁸

There had still been no reaction from Philip II to Darnley’s death. The French ambassador to Spain wrote to the Queen Mother on 3 and 5 March, but said nothing of how the King had received the news, which may indicate that Philip had his own opinions on the matter but did not wish to criticise a Catholic monarch or prejudice Mary’s succession in England.

Pagez arrived in Paris early in March and presented Mary’s letters to Archbishop Beaton and Mondovi.
⁷⁹
Soon after his arrival, de Alava reported to King Philip that it was the opinion of many that it was the Queen of Scots who had got rid of Darnley, who would otherwise have killed her. However, de Alava seems not to have believed this, for he had heard from Archbishop Beaton that the murder was controlled from England, where the intention had been to kill the Queen as well.
⁸⁰

On 5 March, Killigrew reached Edinburgh with Elizabeth’s letter for Mary,
⁸¹
who was still at Seton; although she was far from well, she returned to Edinburgh before the 7th in order to welcome him. Buchanan implies that she would not see him immediately because “he arrived too unseasonably ere the stage had been set: the windows open, the candles not yet lit, and all the other apparatus for the play unprepared.” Yet it would not have taken too long for Mary’s mourning chamber to be prepared in this way, for it had been done very quickly on the morning after Darnley’s death, so Buchanan’s allegation seems purely malicious, and it is far more likely that Mary was too exhausted by the ten-mile ride from Seton to make the effort to receive an ambassador with the proper ceremony.

The next day, Killigrew was entertained to dinner by Moray, with Huntly, Argyll, Maitland and Bothwell—who had all been involved in Darnley’s murder—among the guests, and was afterwards conducted to his audience with the Queen. She received him in a chamber so dark that he could not see her face, “but by her words she seemed very doleful, and accepted my sovereign’s letters and message in very thankful manner. I hope for her answer in two days, which I think will gratify the Queen’s Majesty.”
⁸²
In the event, Elizabeth had to wait rather longer for her answer.

Mahon speculated that someone impersonated Mary on this occasion, but there is no reason to think that, and anyway Killigrew had met her before and would have known her voice. He himself did not question the identity of the woman who received him. The fact that Mary was in a darkened chamber and, according to Buchanan, in bed, is proof that she was still in low spirits and observing her forty days of mourning, and suggests that she had kept the convention whilst at Seton.

In Edinburgh, Killigrew found “great suspicions and no proof, nor appearance of apprehension yet, although I am made believe I shall before I depart hence”; he also detected “a general misliking among the commons and others, which abhor the detestable murder of their King.” He met three of Darnley’s servants, Anthony Standen, Thomas Nelson and Henry Gwynn, who were hoping to return to England as soon as they could obtain passports. Killigrew also noted that Lennox was still in Glasgow, “where he thinks himself safe, as a man of his told me,” among his friends.
⁸³

Mary’s failure, or inability, to deal with the problems confronting her was becoming increasingly manifest. On 8 March, de Silva, who had apparently sent Mary a note warning her of a plot against her—probably the same one that had prompted de Alava to warn Beaton—wrote to Philip II expressing surprise that she had not acknowledged it.
⁸⁴
Around the same time, Lennox wrote to Cecil asking him to urge Elizabeth to avenge “the shedding of Her Highness’s own innocent blood”;
⁸⁵
it was obvious that he had no faith in Mary doing so. By now, having suffered Elizabeth’s outrage and Lady Lennox’s importunings, Cecil had had enough of the Scottish crisis, and on 11 March he told Drury he desired nothing more than to resign.
⁸⁶

Mondovi, however, was still optimistic about Mary. After talking with Pagez, he reported to Rome that the Queen of Scots would now execute the purpose urged on her, which was the deaths of the six leading Scottish Protestant Lords.
⁸⁷
This was a strange about-turn, and perhaps Pagez was taking rather much upon himself, or Mary had her suspicions as to who was responsible for Darnley’s murder. But there is no evidence that she was intending at this time to proceed against anyone for any cause, and it may be that Mondovi had drawn the wrong conclusion from his talk with Pagez.

Certainly Archbishop Beaton was deeply concerned about the rumours linking Mary to Darnley’s death, and was moved to unusual frankness and forcefulness in his reply to Mary’s letters of 20 January and 10 and 18 February, which displays remarkable prescience. After insisting that he had known nothing of the questionable activities of his servants Hiegait and Walker, he referred to “the horrible, mischievous and strange enterprise and execution of the King’s Majesty, who, by craft of men has so violently been shortened of his days,” and came straight to the point:

Of this deed, if I would write all that is spoken here and also in England by [of] the dishonour of the nobility, mistrust and treason of your whole subjects, yea, that yourself is greatly and wrongfully calumniated to be the motive principal of the whole of all, and all done by your command, I can conclude nothing [except] that Your Majesty writes to me yourself, that, since it has pleased God to preserve you to take a vigorous vengeance thereof, that, rather than that it be not actually taken, it appears to me better in this world that you had lost life and all.

As Elizabeth I and Catherine de’ Medici had done, Beaton exhorted Mary to forth-show, now, rather than ever of before, the great virtue, magnanimity and constancy that God has granted you, by Whose grace I hope you shall overcome this most heavy envy and displeasure of the committing thereof, and preserve that reputation in all godliness you have gained of long, which can appear no ways more clearly than that you do such justice as the whole world may declare your innocence, and give testimony for ever of their treason that has committed, without fear of God or man, so cruel and ungodly a murder, whereof there is so much evil spoken that I am constrained to ask you mercy that neither can I nor will I make the rehearsal thereof, which is ever odious. But alas, Madam, this day, all over Europe, there is no subject in head so frequent as of Your Majesty and of the present estate of your realm, which is for the most part interpreted sinisterly.

Beaton’s warning could not have been more candid, and when she got this letter, Mary would know that he had told her the truth and spoken out in her interests. Other letters of his show that he thought her innocent.
⁸⁸

The Archbishop added:

I did thank the ambassador of Spain on your behalf of the advertisement he had made you, suppose it came too late, who yet has desired you to remember Your Majesty that yet he is informed and advertised by the same means as he was of before, that there is yet some notable enterprise against you, wherewith he wishes you to beware in time. I write this far with great regret, by reason I can come in no ways to the knowledge of any particular from his master.
⁸⁹

De Alava’s source was well informed, yet the question must be asked: did the Lords intend any harm to Mary, and how far had they proceeded in their plotting?

It is highly unlikely that Mary had been their intended victim at Kirk o’Field, but almost certain that they had meant to pin the whole responsibility for the crime on Bothwell and thus destroy him. Mary’s trust in Bothwell, and her elevation of him to the position of her chief adviser, was anathema to the Lords, especially Moray. The major crises of Mary’s reign—the Chaseabout Raid and the murders of Rizzio and Darnley—had arisen as a result of threats to Moray’s political dominance, and now here was Bothwell, posing yet another threat. It should not be forgotten that, as well as plotting Rizzio’s murder, the Protestant Lords had planned to imprison their Catholic Queen and rule in the name of her child. Mary’s continuing refusal or inability to proceed against Bothwell for Darnley’s murder, which is what the Lords had probably intended all along, must have gone some way towards sealing her fate, and the mounting public opprobrium against her would have given grounds for a growing conviction that she was not fit to reign.

“LAYING SNARES FOR HER MAJESTY”

CONTRARY TO THE PERCEPTIONS OF Archbishop Beaton and others, Mondovi reported on 12 March that most people in Paris imputed Darnley’s murder to Moray, “who has always had the throne in view, although he is a bastard. He is persuaded by the [Protestants] that it is his by right, especially as he maintains that his mother was secretly espoused by the King his father.”
¹
It will be remembered that Mondovi had spoken with du Croc, who believed the murder was the work of the heretics, with Clernault and, more recently, with Pagez. Shortly after Mondovi wrote his report, du Croc was sent back to Scotland by Catherine de’ Medici to obtain more information about the political situation there.
²

In Scotland too, there were rumours that Moray was not entirely guiltless, and on 13 March, Moray himself wrote to Cecil:

However these last accidents have altered many men’s judgements, yet, being assured that constant men will mean constantly, I would not [pass by] this occasion to signify the constancy of one thankful heart for the many and large benefits I have from time to time received by your means. And, as I am touched myself, so do I judge of you and all men that feareth God and embraced the life of Christianity and honour, as concerning this late accident so odious and so detestable. Yet am I persuaded discreet personages will not rashly judge in so horrible crimes, but, of honest personages, mean honestly, until truth declare and convince the contrary—neither for particular men’s enterprises so ungodly, withdraw their good will from so great a multitude as, I am sure, detests this wild attempt even from their hearts.

Moray also revealed his intention of leaving Scotland in the near future, and asked Cecil to procure “a safe conduct to be sent me in convenient haste.”

This is a highly ambiguous letter: although Moray admits he is touched himself by suspicion, he does not actually say he is innocent, but uses rhetoric to imply it. Moray’s more important communication was confided verbally to the returning Killigrew, whom Moray had commissioned to carry his letter and speak with Cecil and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, for “he hath heard or seen more nor I can write.”
³
This suggests a close collaboration with the English government in a covert enterprise that almost certainly concerned the downfall of Bothwell, added proof of which may perhaps be found in a letter from Justice Clerk Bellenden to Sir John Forster dated 15 March, stating that he should “never give him trust in time coming if the Earl Bothwell and his accomplices gave not their lives ere midsummer for the King’s death.”
⁴
On the same date, in a letter to Cecil, Drury listed Bothwell, Black Ormiston, Hepburn, Hay, Cullen and others including the Laird of Beanston (another Hepburn) and James Edmonstoun as the assassins.
⁵
Already, the official version of Darnley’s murder was being rewritten.

Maitland also wrote to Cecil on the 13th, referring to some candid suggestions made by the latter in two letters that are now lost:

By Mr Killigrew and Mr Melville, I received your letters of 25th and 26th February, and thank you heartily for your frank speech. For my own part, I like your intention, so I know it does not offend such here as have most interest to wish the matter to be earnestly recommended to such as you be; for they mean to demand nothing but right, and that in due time and orderly. For the third mark you wish I should shoot at, to wit, that Her Majesty would allow of your estate in religion [i.e., that she would convert to the reformed faith], it is one of the things in Earth I most desire. I dare be bold enough to utter my fancy in it to Her Majesty, trusting that she will not like me the worse for uttering my opinion in that [which] is profitable for her every way. And I do not despair, but although she will not yield at the first, yet, with progress of time, that point shall be obtained. I pray God it may be shortly.
⁶

Unlike Moray’s letter, this one is almost certainly connected with the negotiations for the English succession, for it would have been more advantageous for all concerned if Mary became a Protestant. The fact that Maitland thought she would eventually convert suggests that she was not as committed to her faith as the Pope would have liked: certainly her concessions to the Kirk give this impression.

Killigrew left for London with both letters on 14 March.

On that day, after intensive investigation, the Council, namely Moray, Argyll, Huntly and Bothwell, issued a proclamation for the arrest of James Murray of Purdovis (brother of Tullibardine) for treasonably setting up placards “tending to Her Majesty’s slander and defamation.”
⁷
James Murray was an enemy to Bothwell and an adherent of the Lennoxes; in 1565, he had been in trouble for alleging that Bothwell intended to murder Moray and had made salacious remarks about the Queen. It is not known what evidence the Lords now held against him, but it seems likely that someone had informed on him. We do know that, after the mermaid placard appeared, the Queen, who was particularly upset by it, had summoned the Minister of Dunfermline “and asked him if he knew the deviser,” which he did not. By this time, Murray was already on the list of suspects, and Bothwell asked the Minister if Murray had spoken evil of him. “I have never heard him say well” was the answer.
⁸

On learning of this new proclamation, Murray immediately fled into England, after sending a letter to Queen Elizabeth, “begging her favour.”
⁹
Then he wrote to the Scottish Council, offering to come with six men, “armed or naked,” to support his allegations in court.

Mary was becoming increasingly uneasy as a result of the clamour over Darnley’s death, and decided that the Prince would be safer back in Stirling in Mar’s care. On 15 March, Bishop Leslie was sent there to make the necessary arrangements. That day, de Alava reported from Paris that the Queen was so alarmed by the worsening situation in Scotland that she was talking of going to live in France, a prospect that was by no means welcome to her former mother-in-law, Catherine de’ Medici, in whose opinion Mary’s place was in Scotland and nowhere else.
¹⁰
Catherine’s disgust at Mary’s failure to apprehend Darnley’s murderers moved her to write to the Scottish Queen, in the name of herself and King Charles, that, “if she performed not her promise of seeking by all her power to have the death of the King their cousin revenged, and to clear herself, she should not only think herself dishonoured, but to receive them for her contraries, and that they would be her enemies.”
¹¹

Moretta and Father Hay arrived in Paris on 15 March.
¹²
The next day, having spoken with them both and learned further details of Darnley’s death, Mondovi wrote that he was now able to understand fully the state of the affairs in Scotland. At this moment, they are in such confusion owing to the death of the King, that there is fear of a very extensive insurrection, for the Earls of Moray, Atholl, Morton and other Lords have joined with the Earl of Lennox, the King’s father, under the pretext of avenging his death. The Earls of Bothwell, Huntly and many other men of importance are with the Queen for the same purpose. Both sides are suspicious of each other. Hence it is thought that [Moray], (as I wrote on the 12th instant), aiming at the succession to the throne, desires upon this occasion to murder the Earl of Bothwell, a courageous man, much trusted and confided in by the Queen, with the intention of being afterwards able to lay snares for the life of Her Majesty with greater ease, especially as he can hope, through the slothfulness of the Earl of Lennox, to obtain, by his permission and consent, the governorship of the Prince and, by consequence, the whole realm. If he should gain this, which may God avert, he may be able to accomplish the wicked end he has set before himself, and herein the favour of England will not be wanting. The English Queen is jealous of the Prince as the legitimate heir of both those realms, and will not omit to favour the said Moray, her dependant, being bound to her by many obligations as well as religion.
¹³

In this breathtaking indictment of Moray there is no hint of any suspicion of Mary, as Moretta had implied in London, nor is Bothwell linked to Darnley’s murder; instead he is referred to merely as an obstacle in the way of Moray bringing about Mary’s ruin. Moretta had left Scotland around 11/12 February, but Moray, Morton and Lindsay did not meet up with Atholl and Caithness until after this date, so Moretta must have maintained contact with his very knowledgeable sources in Scotland after his departure, and received new information that made him revise his opinion of the Queen. Apart from his assumption that Moray wanted Mary dead, Moretta’s report appears to be a reasonably perceptive summation of the situation, given what was soon to happen.

Mondovi also reported that, according to Father Hay, Mary was anxious that he himself should go to Scotland, but both Hay and Moretta warned him not to. Mondovi could not resist adding that, “if the Queen had done that which was recommended and proposed to her from our side, with promise of all the aids necessary for that most just execution, she would now find herself really mistress of her kingdom.”
¹⁴

Moretta saw Giovanni Correr on 20 March; afterwards, Correr reported to the Signory slightly, but not substantially, different details of Darnley’s murder from those that Moretta had given Mondovi. Much has been made of these trivial discrepancies, but they may be accounted for by minor inaccuracies or omissions in both reports; in each case, Moretta gave essentially the same story, asserting that Darnley was awakened by suspicious noises and/or frightened by the sight of armed men outside the house, whereupon he fled, only to be strangled in the garden. In one version, Darnley escaped by a gate into the garden, in the other he escaped out of the window; but if he had got out of the window, he would still have had to go through the postern gate into the south garden, so the two stories are not irreconcilable. It was on this occasion that Moretta imputed the murder to the heretics, and in particular to Mary’s “bastard-half brother.” Correr concluded, “It is widely believed that the principal persons of the kingdom were implicated in this act, because they were dissatisfied with the King.”
¹⁵

On 17 March, Lennox replied to the Queen’s letter asking him to name those whom he wished to accuse of Darnley’s murder:

For the names of the persons aforesaid, I marvel that the same have been kept from Your Majesty’s ears, considering the effect of the said tickets, and the names of the persons are so openly talked of: that is to say, in the first ticket, the Earl of Bothwell, Master James Balfour, Master David Chambers [
sic
] and Black John Spens; and in the second ticket, Signor Francis[co Busso], Bastien [Pagez], John de Bordeaux and Joseph [Rizzio], David’s brother; which persons, I assure Your Majesty, I, for my part, greatly suspect. And now, Your Majesty knowing their names, and being the party as well and more nor I am, although I was the father, I doubt not but Your Majesty will take order in the matter according to the weight of the cause.
¹⁶

Mary was now committed to sending Bothwell and the other men named for trial, but it seems that the decision to do so had not been hers alone. According to Bothwell himself, in a passage in his memoirs headed “My urgent request for a public trial,” “as soon as I realised that these [placards] were laying upon me the blame and odium of having committed a crime of which I and all with me were innocent (of which I call God to witness), I prayed Her Majesty and the Council to allow me to stand trial. If, on close inquiry, I were to be found guilty, I would expect to pay the penalty; but if declared innocent (which in all truth I am), such slanderous attacks should cease. This was agreed to.”
¹⁷

Leaving aside Bothwell’s protestations of innocence, which were crucial to his survival in 1568 when this was written, a trial that would clear his name of the charge of regicide was a highly desirable, if not essential, preliminary to his proposal of marriage to the Queen. Once he was declared innocent, none could accuse him of murdering her husband in order to wed her. As for the trial itself, he must have realised that very little could be proved against him, and that too many people had a vested interest in him keeping his mouth shut. They would have been aware that Bothwell was almost certainly in possession of a copy of the Craigmillar Bond, which would have proved compromising to most of the Queen’s leading advisers.

In his letter, Lennox also asked Mary to decide whether or not he should be made guardian of the Prince in place of Mar, a matter that had evidently been referred to in the lost letters that commenced this correspondence.

In fact, Mary had decided that Mar should retain his guardianship of the Prince, and on 19 March, in consequence of this, he reluctantly relinquished his command of Edinburgh Castle and was formally appointed Governor of Stirling Castle instead.
¹⁸
Buchanan claims that Mary justified her decision to deprive Mar of the more prestigious post on the grounds that he was ill at the time and that “she could not keep in check the Edinburgh mob, who were then giving trouble, unless she had the castle under her own authority”; however, Nau says that she did it “by the advice of her Council, who considered these trusts too important to be both in the hands of one single individual.” It was probably Bothwell who was behind the move, because it was his adherent, Sir James Cockburn of Skirling, who was made Governor of Edinburgh Castle in Mar’s place, which effectively placed the fortress in Bothwell’s hands. According to the
Diurnal of Occurrents
, the citizens were unhappy about the transference of the governorship.

On 19 March, Argyll and Huntly left with the Prince for Stirling, and on the following day entrusted him to Mar’s custody. The fact that the Queen did not travel with her son is perhaps indicative of the state of her health at this time. Had Mary been aware of who her true enemies were, she might well not have entrusted her son to the care of Mar, a leading Protestant, whose wife was the sister of James Murray, the man who was believed to have been behind the placard campaign.